


Floating Faith

by Bronywn



Series: Legend of a Drowned Child [2]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017), Legend of the Three Caballeros (Cartoon)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Amnesia, Episode: s02e03 The Ballad of Duke Baloney!, Hurt, M/M, Real Consequences, get these kids therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:01:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22655158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bronywn/pseuds/Bronywn
Summary: How the Town Where Everyone Was Nice happens in the Drowned Hope Universe. Heads up, it's not quite as nice.
Relationships: José Carioca & Webby Vanderquack, José Carioca/Panchito Pistoles, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Panchito Pistoles & Webby Vanderquack
Series: Legend of a Drowned Child [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1629760
Comments: 16
Kudos: 42





	Floating Faith

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bamboozledeagle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bamboozledeagle/gifts).



> At long last the sequel has been started.

Delmara0 stood in front of a casket. It was a simple dogwood1 casket, minimalistic like the person who rested inside of it. Delmara couldn’t remember who was being lowered before her as she huddled behind a blurry figure, but the deep sense of loss permeated the air and sunk deep into her bones.

Tears were flowing gently as she clutched a gladiolus in one hand, and the stiff black fabric of a funeral dress in the other. Another blurry figure, on the other side of the casket, stepped back. Without sparing a glance at her or the woman whose dress she was clinging to, the figure walked away. Loss and anger thrumming through every step.

The scene shifted as she dropped the gladiolus into the grave.

Delmara was older now, but the loneliness that she had felt before the dogwood casket had seemed to persist through the years. She was sitting in the rafters, high above the ground, watching as the blurry woman from before went about cleaning grand halls.

The gentle hum of the vacuum dulled her senses and set the young girl into a sense of calmness, slightly ebbing away at the empty feeling in her chest. Delmara still couldn’t remember the person who had been buried, let alone the woman or the angry old man, but she knew who he was to her in a sense.

He was her closes confidant, a strict man who would amuse her in his own way. Gentle requests for aide in tracking down a wayward feather duster, or a cloth to shine the silver with. Things that she would turn into treasure hunts, and daring rescues, with her wide sense of imagination. Without him there her adventures became less focused, less fun. The loneliness of the big house wrapped around her and dragged her down, down, down into its unimaginable depths.

“W…Y! Get down from there this instant, Mr. M..uc. would be rather cross if he caught you prancing around in his rafters. Honestly, W…..ail, if you have so much free time you should be working on your languages or combat skills!” The elderly woman called from down below. She had stopped the vacuum, which in turn stopped the gentle hum and caused her voice to echo. Delmara was glad her tone wasn’t cross, rather a bemused tired, tinged with a gentle rebuke as the dulcet sounds of the elder woman’s British accent filled the silence.

Her small frame lurched forward as she vaulted from her hiding spot, gripping a light fixture to slow her descent and allow her to roll into a forward handspring ending up in front of the woman.3

“Yes Gr..ny” It was her own voice, younger than she ever remembered it, or herself being. She sounded sad and guilty, as the dream once again shifted.

She was in a room full of money, jewels, and other valuables, a new figure stood in the center of it all. Her feathers were green, eyes a sickly yellow, and the pure hurt and rage Delmara felt looking at the woman only cemented the fact she didn’t like her. While this was most likely a symbolic dream, who owned a room full of riches beside banks, if the young girl met this woman in real life, she would punch her in the face.

Which was exactly what the dream version of her did. Several times over. Until the woman dislodged her with some sort of shield. Delmara felt her body sail through the air before landing in a heap as her small frame slid down a pile of coins and pearls.

She began to sink into the pile, feeling as the edges that dug into her back turned from metal to water, dragging her under. Further and further, much like the earlier loneliness. The water seeped into her lungs, chocking her. A hand hooked onto a braided bracelet on her wrist, yanking at her arm before the fabric snapped and she was slipping into the abyss once more.

The little duckling woke up with a start, only to see a monkey-bat-donkey-rat thing looking down at her with wide curious eyes. So she did the only sane thing she could think of, she let out a shriek. The beast reeled back and did the same.

Scrambling from her bed the little duckling called for her dads. “PAPÍ! PADRE! MONSTRUO AYUDA!4” She rolled off the bed, on the side opposite of the… _thing_. She raced towards the door only for the monster to cut her off and hiss at her, causing her to fall on her butt. She could hear the footsteps of her fathers’ racing through the Cabana as the monster came closer to her.

Good, it was exactly where she wanted it. Pulling out the bow Tia Xandra5 had given her after the four of them realized she was proficient in several weapons, though none of them could determine whether she was just a natural or she had been trained before her memory loss. She loaded an arrow and shot it for the beast as her bedroom door flew open. It flew at her and out the window as her dads’ dodged the arrow, looking at the monster with faces holding recognition.

Papí moved towards her after sharing a look with Padre, the rooster moving towards the kitchen to call Tio Donald5. The soft hands of her Papí cradled her, and she burrowed into the older parrots chest. She was a strong duck, but waking up to a monster in your room was terrifying. Add in the fact she had been having nightmares for the last couple weeks, and you had a cocktail of emotions that lead to a mental breakdown.

===

Panchito picked up the phone and dialed Donald, knowing the duck was an insomniac and would be awake. Even if he wasn’t, this was a problem that needed to be addressed as soon as possible. The normally calm, well emotionally calm, rooster felt his frustration grow with each ring. His foot began to tap impatiently as the bird wish to sweep into his daughter’s room and sweep her up in a hug.

Halfway through the third ring Donald picked up.

“Panchito, it’s three in the morning, what are you doing awake?” Donald didn’t sound angry, just resigned and tired. Panchito didn’t miss how Donald mentioned the rooster being up, but not himself. Hypocrite.

“Donal’, we have a problem. A big problem, mi amigo.” Panchito could feel his friend tense up through the phone, knowing that his own panicked voice was doing nothing to sooth Donald. “You remember Leopold the Horrible right?”

“You mean the monkey-bat-donkey-rat thing as you so lovingly called it? Yeah.” Panchito could hear the Donald’s trepidation and understanding through the sarcasm.

“He was in Delmara’s room. José and I think we know why he was in there, after all it’s where we used to keep…” he trailed off. As open as José and Panchito had been about their past with Delmara, phone lines weren’t always the most secure.

“Where we used to keep the amulets.” Donald finished the statement after a few moments of silence, letting Panchito know the line was secure. “You don’t think, I mean Felldrake can’t, you know?”

“I don’ know Donal’.” Panchito sighed. The rooster wanted to believe he was just being paranoid, José too if he had reached the same conclusion after realizing why exactly Leopold would be in Delmara’s room. “But I mean, chico was trapped in a stick and using Sheldgoose as a proxy when we first met him those many years ago.”

Panchito could hear Donald’s frustrated sigh from over the phone, the poor duck had been having it rough since his honorary daughter had died. The boys were in therapy with Minnie, one of Donald’s college friends he and José had the joy of meeting. From what Donald told them it was sorely needed.

Louie had become depressed, there were days where he would just stare out a window. Donald would lament how he could do nothing to stop or even lessen the guilt the youngest brother held, often mourning the fact Louie blamed himself for the young girls death.

Dewey had become quieter, and clingier. He refused to be alone, always needing one of his brothers’ or Uncles’ with him at all times. When neither was around the young boy suffered from separation anxiety. Huey, well Huey tried to hide his suffering. Donald would speak of the various times he had found the young duckling curled up next to the locked door of the dead girls door, evidence of tears on his sleeping face.

The eldest triplet, from what Donald had told him, pretended everything was fine. However, he had taken up being overprotective and vicious to outsiders, or anyone who could shake their normalcy. Sometimes Donald would recount how he would sit at the corner of a room and observe his brothers, misexpressions showing his displeasure with everyone and everything. Even Donald’s old friends weren’t spared this treatment, unless they were like Goofy, who had been around during a majority of the boys younger years. Donald was pretty sure Huey would accept Panchito and José as they had used to visit annually until the boys were eight and plans no longer were able to coincide.

“Panchito, what do we do?” Donald sounded old, older than he was. Panchito could tell the duck was running out of hope. Hope that his boys would come out of this problem. Hope that Felldrake would get defeated and stay defeated. Hope that he wouldn’t lose any more people.

“Well, what if we arranged a meet up? It would get the boys out of Duckburg, allow you to meet Delmara, and allow us time to plan our next move.”

“Ok.” The two stayed on the phone for another half hour hammering out the details, before hanging up with promises to see each other in a week, and assurances that everything would be alright. Panchito was back in Delmara’s room as quickly as he could be, and he felt his heart break at the sight of his husband holding their daughter, who had cried herself to sleep.

Delmara was a strong girl, owning one of the brightest and most adventurous spirit he had the honor of knowing, but he wasn’t oblivious to her suffering. She had begun to get nightmares the closer they got to her adoption day, and though they were tapering off the more belated it became it still broke his heart to know there was nothing José or he could do to help her. Other than be there for her.

Taking her from his husbands hands he brought her to the bedroom, it would be ok if she slept with her fathers’ tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a 2-3 chapter fic focusing on what happens in the town where everyone is nice in conjunction to Drowned hope.
> 
> === 
> 
> 0 Delmara Pistoles Carioca González is the name Panchito and José gave the amnesic Webby in Drowned Hope 
> 
> 1 Dogwood trees are one of the most popular landscape trees in the country. Their special meanings include loyalty, safety, kindness, fertility, stability, determination, wishes, and protection. In Native American culture, dogwood trees could symbolize good luck.
> 
> 2 Remembrance, faithfulness, and sincerity all are represented by the gladiolus. Their tall, strong stems symbolize a strength of character as well. This vibrant, long lasting bloom is available in a large range of hues and is popular in floral arrangements.
> 
> 3 Not sure if this is at all possible so don’t quote me on it.
> 
> 4 Ayuda means help, Monstruo means monster, Padre is Panchito, Papí/Papá is José. Webby is shown in the show to speak multiple languages, and Panchito and José being from Mexican and Brazilian respectively you can bet your bottom they have her speaking Spanish and Portuguese. However, while my Spanish is nowhere near fluent, I don’t know any Portuguese. Though I’m probably going to look some words up using google translate.
> 
> 5 Yep, the Xandra is the cool Tia (Aunt) that teaches her niece how to use cool weapons and cause chaos in the pursuit of adventure, she is after all the Goddess of Adventure and will always be enter twined with the destiny of the Three Caballero’s and their ancestors, blood or not. Also Donald is her Uncle, both in show and in this fic (though some could argue for father). She’s heard stories of him and her fathers’ from Xandra and Ari.


End file.
